Efficacy of Forest Acts and Forest Policies in India

When the jungles in medieval India provided all resources to the people without any restriction, they were not under any elaborate management system. With the rising demand for timber by the East India Company for naval ship construction and subsequently for railway sleepers and cantonment buildings in British India, the colonial rulers felt the need for bringing some legislation for exercising control over the forests, possessing potential timber wealth. Initial set of laws were meant to retain the power of reserving forest so as to wrest the ownership to Government, with access to public on certain rights. Promulgation of rules for forest conservancy necessitated the creation of administrative machinery, comprising of different grades of forest service. As the foresters of late nineteenth century were faced with shortages of harvestable timber and other products, they initiated the process of scientific forest management under the umbrella of systematic forest working plans. Alongside, the central government enunciated the first ever national forest policy in 1894 that spelt out the rationale for categorization of forests on the basis of their intended primary use. The effectiveness of the forest laws reflected in the expansion of the extent of government reserve forests during the first few decades of the twentieth century, but the curtailment of rights and privileges hitherto enjoyed by the communities began to show up, causing resentment and social upheavals among the affected people. This prompted few provinces to enjoin village panchayats with the responsibility of managing certain categories of forests. With no control on abstraction of forest usufructs under panchayat supervision, quality of those forests deteriorated forcing the Government to resume them to the control of the forest department. British India witnessed three forest acts, namely in 1865, 1878 and 1927, though there were variations in the nature of Acts and rules from one province to another, as many Presidencies had enacted their own framework of law. Into Independence, India announced its second National Forest Policy in 1952 which laid emphasis on bringing one third of the country’s land mass under forest and categorized forests according to their intended use as in the earlier policy. As the scope of enlarging reserve forests waned in view of competing demands for land use, Government focused on creation of green cover outside notified reserves. This signaled the need for promoting serious engagement and participation of people in forest management, which reflected in the third National Forest Policy of 1988. It reiterated the need to augment India’s forest and tree cover to one third of its area, while it put the primary role of forest on biodiversity conservation and safeguarding the interest and livelihood of forest dependent people rather than on economic returns. With the changing emphasis on forest management, India saw the enactment of various laws for wildlife protection, forest and biodiversity conservation, ensuring the rights of tribal and forest dwelling people. All through these decades, the Indian Forest Act 1927 didn’t undergo any significant change. There were obvious mismatches between the policies and legal pronouncements during different periods. How the evolution of forest policies with time and the introduction of new pieces of legislations charted the course of forest management in India forms the central thread of the chapter.